Mood:  special
Topic: The Places
A few weeks back a bunch of my friends and I decided to visit one of the bars inside the Green Zone. The bar is named after the company that owns the compound – Parsons.

To get to the bar, we called up a motorpool driver and piled into a large van. We had already thrown back a few drinks, and I am sure that our fairly conservative and religious driver was wondering how a bunch of drunks like us could be placed in charge of the reconstruction. On the short trip through the Green Zone, we were very loud and made many crude jokes.

After passing through a Marine checkpoint, where the very sober Marines gently teased us, we finally arrived at the entrance to the compound where the bar was located. We walked through the main gate and then approached a small guard shark. The security guard manning the shack was from southern Africa. His accent was so thick that I had a hard time understanding what he saying. He wanted everyone to sign into a guest book, but since most of my friends had already taken off toward the bar, I simply signed all of them in and forged their signatures.

The bar was nothing more than a double-wide trailer filled with a television, tables, chairs, and a dart board. The bar itself was rather small and didn’t provide enough room for the bartender to keep all the beer behind the counter. A lot of the beer rested in larger coolers to the right of the bar. If you wanted a beer, you simply pulled it from a cooler and paid at the bar.

The prices were very reasonable. Beers were about $2 per bottle, and most mixed drinks were $3.